Page 43 of On Tap for the Bear
Eli catches me, one arm around my waist, but I feel him tense. See his pupils dilate and his breath come faster.
"Eli?"
"Go back to town." His voice comes out strained, almost a growl. "Now, Quinn. Please."
"What's happening?"
"The surge—it affects us. Makes it hard to control...” He breaks off with a sound of pain, doubling over.
I grip his shoulders. "I'm not leaving you like this."
"Quinn...”
"No." I hold on tighter, even as his skin grows hot beneath my hands.
He looks up at me, and his eyes have changed. Still brown, but deeper somehow. More animal than human. "I can't hold it back. Not through this."
"Hold what back?"
The answer comes not in words, but in the swirling mist that rises around him.
Silver-green, just like in the cellar. Just like the ley lines themselves. It obscures him for a heartbeat, and when it clears?—
My scream catches in my throat.
Where Eli stood, there's a bear.
Massive. Grizzly. Its fur is dark brown with silver tips that catch the light, and its shoulders are broader than any bear I've ever seen in documentaries. It has to be six feet tall at the shoulder, maybe more, with paws the size of dinner plates.
The bear's eyes lock onto mine.
Brown eyes. Eli's eyes.
My legs won't move. Can't move. Every instinct screams at me to run, but I'm frozen, staring at this impossible thing that just happened. That can't have happened.
Except it did. I watched the mist swallow him. Watched his form blur and change and become this.
The bear takes a step toward me. Slow. Careful. Like it's trying not to spook me.
Too late for that.
Another step. Its massive head lowers, and I catch the scent of cedar and smoke—Eli's scent—mixed with something wild and animal.
"Eli?" My voice comes out barely a whisper.
The bear stops. Makes a low sound in its chest that's not quite a growl. More like a rumble of acknowledgment.
It's him. Somehow, impossibly, it's him.
The bear moves closer until it's right in front of me, so close I could touch it if I dared. Its breath is warm on my face. Those brown eyes—Eli's eyes—search mine with an intelligence no animal should have.
Slowly, so slowly I barely breathe, the bear lowers its head. Presses its massive snout against my trembling hand.
The touch is gentle. Deliberate. A question and a reassurance all at once.
"You're a bear," I say stupidly, and a slightly hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. "You're actually a bear."
The bear—Eli—makes that rumbling sound again. He adjusts his weight, and I realize he's trying to seem smaller. Less threatening. It's almost comical given his size, except nothing about this is funny.
